


were you raised in deep water?

by Teaotter



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Gen, Lies, Post-Season/Series 02, Training Montage, corto maltese - Freeform, dubious advice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 02:18:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4161897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teaotter/pseuds/Teaotter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one ever told Thea to stop fucking around and step up. Ollie, sure, he got the expectations, and the company, and the truths no one was willing to share with his sister.</p><p>Malcolm is the first person to look at her and see someone strong enough to stand on her own.</p><p>That it's <em>Malcolm</em>... is just as problematic as Thea expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	were you raised in deep water?

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Mary Lambert's song _Sum of Our Parts_ :
> 
> This is my skin that I've never fit in  
> I was born the queen of nowhere  
> Well, this is how it begins  
> I wonder is this your life?  
> Were you raised in deep water?  
> Are they pushing you down?  
> Are you gonna push harder?

They’re in Corto Maltese less than a week before Thea cuts her hair. 

Mom would’ve cried. _You have such lovely hair_ , she used to say. But Mom is dead now, and Ollie -- he always said she was pretty, no matter what she did.

If Malcolm asks, Thea thinks she’ll say, _It was too hot_. Or maybe, if she’s feeling more honest, _I wanted a change_.

He doesn’t ask. Thea thinks that maybe he doesn’t even notice.

****

Malcolm’s sword moves in and out of the afternoon shadows faster than Thea can track. All she has is the sudden jarring pain in her hands and the confusion when her sword flies away. The bamboo blade hits the wall with a sharp crack just as Malcolm’s blade -- also bamboo -- finds her throat and freezes.

“You were distracted,” he says flatly. He’s barely sweating, even in the sweltering heat.

“Sorry.” Thea is tired of him telling her what she is, but more tired of him being right. Something about the way the sunlight came through the windows reminded her of home for a moment. It was only a moment, but that was long enough.

She takes a step back, intending to retrieve her sword for the next round -- but Malcolm follows her movement and digs the edge of the practice sword into the soft skin under her jaw.

“Sorry means nothing,” he says, his eyes boring into hers. He drags the end of the blade down her throat slowly, painfully. “You have to focus.”

Thea can’t see anything but his eyes, fixed on hers, blocking out the rest of the world. No one has ever looked at her like that, like someone who is only pretending to be weak. Her family never expected anything of her, never expected her to be anything except their precious breakable girl.

Malcolm doesn’t just expect her success; he demands it. Thea never knew how much she needed that.

****

Thea loves the house they’re renting. It’s a huge, shadow-filled mausoleum that reminds her of Queen Manor, but none of these ghosts belong to her. Living there is like living in an aquarium, surrounded by water but never quite drowning. Everything that can hurt her is on the other side of the glass.

Building a life in Corto Maltese is as easy as dressing a doll. She gets a job that doesn’t take up too much of her time. She makes the kind of friends who know only the superficial things about each other, and have a good time together anyway. She smiles, she waves. She laughs, sometimes. She wasn’t sure she’d ever do that again, not easily.

Corto Maltese is the kind of place where everyone is haunted, and no one asks about the past.

****

Malcolm laughs when she tells him about the party. She’d been invited by one of the quiet, dark-eyed boys who sometimes come to the café and pretend not to watch her. He looked sweet; she said yes.

“I tell you what,” Malcolm says. “If you can disarm me, you can go.”

“There's a terrible conversation in there about power and privilege,” Thea tells him. She wants to argue that it doesn’t all have to be about training. But she’s already backing toward one of the sword stands, keeping him in sight the whole time. “If I can overpower you, I can get what I want?”

“That's the way the world is. It takes what you can’t protect.” He grabs one -- no, two -- of the other swords and slides into a guard position. “You have to take it back.”

Thea begins to circle him, looking for an opening. “You're assuming I really want to go to that party.”

“I assume that you want to be the master of your own fate.” He swivels with her; he isn’t going to give her an opening. “Am I wrong?”

She’s just going to have to make one. 

“Let's find out.”

****

Back in Starling, Ollie texts her, over and over again. _Where are you now?_ and _How’s it going, Speedy?_

He’s talking to a girl who doesn’t exist any more, but Thea doesn’t want to hurt him by telling him the truth. 

_I’m becoming someone you never wanted me to be_ , she doesn’t say. Instead, she does as he taught her: she lies and lies and lies.


End file.
